Fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) processes are commonly used in refineries as a method for converting feedstocks, without requiring additional hydrogen, to produce lower boiling fractions suitable for use as fuels. While FCC processes can be effective for converting a majority of a typical input feed, under conventional operating conditions at least a portion of the resulting products can correspond to a fraction that exits the process as a “bottoms” fraction, which can be referred to as main column bottoms. This bottoms fraction can typically be a high boiling range fraction, such as a ˜650° F.+ (˜343° C.+) fraction. Because this bottoms fraction may also contain FCC catalyst fines, this fraction can sometimes be referred to as a catalytic slurry oil.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,691,076 describes a method for manufacturing naphthenic base oils from effluences of a fluidized catalytic cracking unit. The method describes using an FCC unit to process an atmospheric resid to form a fuels fraction, a light cycle oil fraction, and a slurry oil fraction. Portions of the light cycle oil and/or the slurry oil are then hydrotreated and dewaxed to form a naphthenic base oil.